SF OKs new Apple Store for Union Square

The Apple store proposed for Union Square has been redesigned slightly, but the new look retains the distinctive steel walls and glass skin for which the company’s retail spaces are known. (Courtesy Foster + Partners)

Apple is set to erect a striking modernistic glass store at Union Square, after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission granted final approvals on Tuesday.

“The project will be the flagship for Apple,” Rick Militello, the company’s development director, told San Francisco planning commissioners in February. “It will be more iconic than the glass cube (Apple Store) you may have seen in New York City.”

The Stockton Street side of the new Union Square Apple Store was redesigned to include a deep window cutting the steel wall, and a plaza that preserves a popular fountain by Ruth Asawa.(Foster + Partners)

Designed by renowned architects Foster + Partners, the firm creating Apple’s forthcoming circular “Starship Enterprise” Cupertino headquarters, the two-story structure will replace the four-story Levi’s store now at the corner of Post and Stockton.

The store had a bumpy road to approval after The Chronicle revealed that it would have axed the popular Ruth Asawa fountain, a beloved local landmark at the corner of Stockton and Post. The bronze fountain, cast from bakers’ dough that school kids and ordinary citizens had modeled to depict San Francisco people and landmarks, will be moved in its entirety to anchor the center of a new plaza.

“We are thrilled that the city of San Francisco has given its final approval to begin work on our new store and public plaza, which will make a wonderful addition to Union Square and create hundreds of local jobs,” Apple spokeswoman Amy Bessette told website Re/code. “Our Stockton Street store has been incredibly popular, welcoming over 13 million customers since it opened nine years ago, and we look forward to making a new home on Union Square.”

At 24,819 square feet, the new store is 45 percent larger than the Apple store it will replace, now located at Stockton and Ellis. It will also bump up the number of employees, to 400 vs. 350 now. Construction is expected to begin this summer.